Back in August 11 I posted about my Moroccan Palm Room – aka the little sunroom connecting the loungeroom to the balcony.

Well, 18 months and two dogs later and the carpet’s dishevelled and the flooring in need of a major overhaul. Thanks god for Bunnings!

I decided to go for a vinyl floor in a weathered driftwood type woodtone. I much prefer the aged greyish look to the golden tone you see in much timber flooring. Keeping the moroccan feel, I took out a few palms and put in a comfy chair in which to sit, read and soak up the sun. Check it out:

I’ve been busily decorating my new house, and one of the rooms I’m pretty happy with is my atrium or sunroom. I’ve given it an Indian/Moroccan twist, courtesy of the carved wooden screen and lanterns, and thrown in lots of palms for an exotic eastern feel.

This first shot shows you the view from the lounge as I’m sitting down…showing how high the celings are and how much glass and light there is! The walls in the sunroom I will wallpaper or stencil in a moroccan design, and the walls in the living room are shortly going to be painted charcoal/black for impact. The timber floors may also be stained dark, but we are living with them for a while to see how they will look with other dark surfaces around them. Anyway, on with the show…

And now for the little vignette of eastern objects (the large lantern I bought at Freedom Furniture, but at reduced price due to no glass insert). I added pops of lime green for vibrancy – inside the lantern I just placed scrunched up table napkins! The little table the objects sit upon, I carried away from the Mitchell Road Antiques Centre, when it had its last day before closing – totally free. Gotta love a bargain.

Usually the bifold doors are closed, but they can open up to unify the space (although why the owner decided to have a sunken room, I’ll never know!)

I do need to get more interesting pots for the palms…and better flooring.

Another shot shows just a little bit of the loungeroom…but it’s not done yet, so more details will just have to wait! But again the high ceilings and multitude of glass are in view here:

So that was my Moroccan palm room. There are a LOT of DIY projects in store for me around the house…and I hope you won’t mind me sharing the results.

1. Have a good look at your chain and work out where to put your various elements. I decided to only use the chunkier chains in my necklace for the bulky skull beads etc.

2. Start placing the beads and charms, attaching by means of safety pins or existing link chains, and take off again if they don’t work.

3. At a certain point you’ll need to affix your chain necklace to something that will keep it steady while you add more beads, chains etc…Otherwise the little beads may end up on the wrong side when being worn. I discovered this was happening with my little bones especially. I used a foam mannequin head and stuck pins through a couple of the chain loops at the back to hold it firm.

4. Keep going, adding and subtracting elements as you see fit. In my case, I took off the skull earrings as I felt they looked a bit tacky, and added more skull beads in various sizes instead…and more safety pins! (I had to rush up to the dollar shop for more, heh).

5. Try the necklace on, to see if the effect when worn is what you’re after. And make a bracelet to match, while you’re there! (Toyah Wilcox/Siouxsie make-up entirely optional)

(And, erm, take out the trash before you take a photo, OK? You’d THINK hubby would’ve noticed that before he took the pic – sigh…..)

There are lots of other exciting things you can do with safety pins and chains – why not pick your fave designer and attempt a DIY? This blog Brook & Lyn took a Moschino jacket and copied it using lots of tiny gold safety pins around the collar.

For myself, I’m eyeing off Balmain’s latest military jackets that have chains adorning each buttonhole and frogging, and the dress completely covered in fine gold chain. Hmm, gonna need a whole lotta chain…..

Have you DIY’d anything with safety pins? What would you like to make, if you did?